The Chicago-born pontiff, who has a tense relationship with Trump, mailed in a ballot for the midterm elections that will decide control of the US Congress.
Though if there had been things against Rome in the early new testament, do you think the Romans would have just left that alone?
Similarly, I wonder if Constantine even really believed in Christianity. Like it’s in the historical record that he wanted something to bind all Romans together because it was getting hard to convince Iberian Romans to go fight wars in the middle east after they ran out of land to give away to legionaries. And then, he supposedly had a dream that said he would win a battle if he put a cross on his shield (iirc) and that made him a true believer! Or he picked the Christian cult out of all the cult options at the time and made up a story because no one would go for “I need you to believe this so you’ll die to further my imperial goals” if they didn’t think he believed.
Even then, it still took a few more emperors for it to stick, and I’m not sure any ruler prior to Charlemagne actually got to benefit from team Christianity giving Europe unity (at least militarily… Rome continued to struggle to fill legions after adopting it, though obviously it did get quite entrenched culturally before the western empire fell).
Yeah, there was some dream or vision to do this before a battle and they’d win, so he did it and they did win, or so the story goes at least.
Kinda convenient how these people who make it known that they think being at the head of a religion would be great for them and then suddenly a religious experience just kinda falls into their lap like that.
Similar happened with Scientology and Mormonism iirc, too.
Though if there had been things against Rome in the early new testament, do you think the Romans would have just left that alone?
Similarly, I wonder if Constantine even really believed in Christianity. Like it’s in the historical record that he wanted something to bind all Romans together because it was getting hard to convince Iberian Romans to go fight wars in the middle east after they ran out of land to give away to legionaries. And then, he supposedly had a dream that said he would win a battle if he put a cross on his shield (iirc) and that made him a true believer! Or he picked the Christian cult out of all the cult options at the time and made up a story because no one would go for “I need you to believe this so you’ll die to further my imperial goals” if they didn’t think he believed.
Even then, it still took a few more emperors for it to stick, and I’m not sure any ruler prior to Charlemagne actually got to benefit from team Christianity giving Europe unity (at least militarily… Rome continued to struggle to fill legions after adopting it, though obviously it did get quite entrenched culturally before the western empire fell).
I think he saw a vision of the cross in the clouds or something and put it on his shield?
Yeah, there was some dream or vision to do this before a battle and they’d win, so he did it and they did win, or so the story goes at least.
Kinda convenient how these people who make it known that they think being at the head of a religion would be great for them and then suddenly a religious experience just kinda falls into their lap like that.
Similar happened with Scientology and Mormonism iirc, too.
Was just talking about how ironic it was the Roman emperor embraced Christianity as a tool to kill people. Exactly as Jesus intended???